This is just one more reason to do your homework on who you are trusting when it comes to buying a home and finding financing;
A former mortgage broker, Mark Alan Abrams- age 49, was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for a fraud scheme that involved buying houses in some of Southern California‘s most affluent and exclusive neighborhoods and selling them to fake buyers at drastically inflated prices.
Abrams of Los Angeles was also ordered Friday to pay more than $41 million in restitution to two federally insured banks. The sentence came after Abrams plead guilty to a string of accusations- the likes of; bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and loan fraud, making a false statement on a tax return and obstruction of justice.
The judge found that Abrams’ willingness to defraud banks, utilize credit information belonging to unknowing victims and compel employees to participate in the scheme was “particularly evil.”
Abrams and his business partner, Charles Elliott Fitzgerald, bought homes in neighborhoods like Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Malibu, La Jolla and Carmel, and then used fraudulent appraisal information to resell them for inflated amounts to fake buyers who purchased the properties with loans.
Fitzgerald, a real estate developer, was sentenced last year to 14 years in federal prison. He had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and loan fraud, running a continuing financial crimes enterprise, money laundering, obstruction of justice and three counts of bank fraud.
Over a three year period , the Lehman Brothers Bank funded 80 loans worth $137 million — $50 million more than what was actually needed to pay for the homes. Fitzgerald and Abrams reaped millions of dollars from these inflated loans and passed kickbacks on to their associates through commissions.
When Lehman Brothers sued Fitzgerald and others involved in the scheme in April 2003, Fitzgerald hid his assets and fled the country- living in Samoa until being extradited to Los Angeles in December 2006. When all is said and done- a total of 11 real estate professionals have been convicted of federal charges related to the scheme.
Tagged as: Bank Fraud, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Carmel, Charles Elliott Fitzgerald, Fraud Scheme, La Jolla, Lehman Brothers Bank, Loan Fraud, Los Angeles, Malibu, Mark Alan Abrams, Obstruction of Justice, Samoa, SoCal, Southern California, Tax Return
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